Humanism, Secularism, Feminism

Taslima Nasreen

Taslima Nasreen, an award-winning writer, physician, secular humanist and human rights activist, is known for her powerful writings on women oppression and unflinching criticism of religion, despite forced exile and multiple fatwas calling for her death. In India, Bangladesh and abroad, Nasreen’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry and memoir have topped the best-seller’s list.

Taslima Nasreen was born in Bangladesh. She started writing when she was 13. Her writings won the hearts of people across the border and she landed with the prestigious literary award Ananda from India in 1992. Taslima won The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament in 1994. She received the Kurt Tucholsky Award from Swedish PEN, the Simone de Beauvoir Award and Human Rights Award from Government of France, Le Prix de l' Edit de Nantes from the city of Nantes, France, Academy prize from the Royal Academy of arts, science and literature from Belgium. She is a Humanist Laureate in The International Academy for Humanism,USA. She won Distinguished Humanist Award from International Humanist and Ethical Union, Free-thought Heroine award from Freedom From Religion foundation, USA., IBKA award, Germany,and Feminist Press Award, USA . She got the UNESCO Madanjeet Singh prize for Promotion of the Tolerance and Non-violence in 2005. She received the Medal of honor of Lyon. She got honorary citizenship from Paris, Nantes, Lyon, Metz, Thionville, Esch etc. Taslima was awarded the Condorcet-Aron Prize at the “Parliament of the French Community of Belgium” in Brussels and Ananda literary award again in 2000.

Bestowed with honorary doctorates from Gent University and UCL in Belgium, and American University of Paris and Paris Diderot University in France, she has addressed gatherings in major venues of the world like the European Parliament, National Assembly of France, Universities of Sorbonne, Oxford, Harvard, Yale, etc. She got fellowships as a research scholar at Harvard and New York Universities. She was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in the USA in 2009.

Taslima has written 35 books in Bengali, which includes poetry, essays, novels and autobiography series. Her works have been translated in thirty different languages. Some of her books are banned in Bangladesh. Because of her thoughts and ideas she has been banned, blacklisted and banished from Bengal, both from Bangladesh and West Bengal part of India. She has been prevented by the authorities from returning to her country since 1994, and to West Bengal since 2007.

EVENTS

The fatwa committee of the General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowment in the United Arab Emirates issued the fatwa after determining that “such a one-way journey poses a real risk to life, and that can never be justified in Islam.” They continued, “There is a possibility that an individual who travels to planet Mars may not be able to remain alive there, and is more vulnerable to death.”

The committee says participating in the “hazardous trip” to Mars, will likely result in death for no “righteous reason.” This means that the unfortunate Mars adventurer will face a “punishment similar to that of suicide in the Hereafter.”

Did the Koran say anything about Mars? No. Because Muhammad did not know about Mars. He didn’t know about the universe, and billions of stars and planets. Muhammad talked about our sun, moon and earth– things he could see. After being influenced by Christian and Jews myths, Muhammad imagined heaven and hell. He described about his imaginary travel to heaven and hell. That was hilarious.

Humans walked on the moon and learned much more than what is available about the moon in the Koran. Obviously Islamists would not want humans to discover Mars, the planet unknown to Muhammad and his imaginary God. If humans start living in Mars, that will definitely embarrass ignorant masses. Allah says he will call people from earth (not from mars or any other planets) for the last judgement day.

Reportedly, around 500 Saudis and other Arabs applied for the Mars One mission. The fatwa committee believes that some of them may be fleeing to Mars to escape punishment from Almighty Allah. However, the committee says not even traveling to Mars will allow one to escape Almighty Allah’s judgment. They say, “This is an absolutely baseless and unacceptable belief because not even an atom falls outside the purview of Allah, the Creator of everything.”

Mars One plans on releasing more information in early 2014 on further cuts as they continue their selection process for the final candidates. They say in the next stages, “We expect to begin understanding what is motivating our candidates to take this giant leap for humankind.”

Muhammad makes Allah look so cruel. Allah will burn his creatures in hell, even though Muhammad claims Allah is merciful and kind. People want to escape to Mars, it is like catch me if you can game. Who wants to get eternal torture and burn in hell! But guys, stop believing in religious fairy tales, you will be free from your fear. I bet.

Mars One posted a response to the fatwa asking that it be canceled. They argue, “Any progress requires taking risks, but in this case the reward is ‘the next giant leap for mankind.’ That reward is certainly worth the risks involved in this mission.”

Mars One says that they would like to keep their opportunity open to Muslims. Mars One writes, “They can be the first Muslims to witness the signs of God’s creation in heaven, drawing upon the rich culture of travel and exploration of early Islam.”

It is yet to be seen whether the fatwa committee’s opinions have been swayed by the Mars One response.

Sometimes I feel that Muslims want to be separated from the rest of the world. Muslims verses the world. Sometimes when I read about weird fatwas like this one, I think that some insane Muslims just want to make all the sane people laugh at their insanity.

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Cupping therapy is an ancient alternative medicine in which a local suction is created on the skin. Many people including celebrities fall for ancient medicine. They believe cupping can cure almost all kinds of diseases. But the truth is, ancient medicine men did not have much scientific knowledge about diseases and cures. People who have a little bit of common sense should know that cupping therapy is not a cure for any disease. Simply it does not work. And, cupping creates nothing but pain and bruises.

Look at the cupping marks on their back.

Gwyneth Paltrow

Jennifer Aniston

Victoria Beckham

I like what Richard Dawkins says,”There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn’t work.”
Not only Western celebrities, many Eastern celebrities also run after medicine that doesn’t work.

Alternative therapies lack the requisite scientific validation, and their effectiveness is either unproved or disproved. Many of the claims regarding the efficacy of alternative medicines are controversial, since research on them is frequently of low quality and methodologically flawed. Selective publication of results (misleading results from only publishing positive results, and not all results), marked differences in product quality and standardization, and some companies making unsubstantiated claims, call into question the claims of efficacy of isolated examples where herbs may have some evidence of containing chemicals that may affect health. The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine points to confusions in the general population – a person may attribute symptomatic relief to an otherwise-ineffective therapy just because they are taking something (the placebo effect); the natural recovery from or the cyclical nature of an illness (the regression fallacy) gets mis-attributed to an alternative medicine being taken; a person not diagnosed with science based medicine may never originally have had a true illness diagnosed as an alternative disease category.

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The world is changed. We sane people get harassed, arrested, jailed, killed not because of our big books anymore but for our facebook or twitter one-liners. Fazil Say, a Turkish pianist, is sentenced to prison for a tweet.

In one tweet, Fazil Say joked about Azan, a call to prayer that he said lasted only 22 seconds. Say tweeted: “Why such haste? Have you got a mistress waiting or a raki on the table?” Raki is a traditional alcoholic drink made with aniseed. Islam forbids alcohol and many Islamists consider the remarks unacceptable.

The charges against Say also cited other tweets he sent, including one – based on a verse attributed to famous medieval poet Omar Khayyam – that questioned whether heaven was a tavern or a brothel, because of the promises that wine will flow and each believer will be greeted by virgins.

It is indeed a sad day for Turkey, once a secular state.

And in India, another secular state, a criminal case was filed on the charges of hurting religious feelings of people and a non-bailable arrest warrant was issued against me because of my tweet. The tweet was very innocent and simple: ‘Muslim women deserve to have sex with 72 virgin men on earth as they won’t get these things in heaven’.

“Islamic supremacists regard the pre-Islamic past of any Muslim country as worthless trash … not to be preserved for its archaeological value, but effaced as an insult to Islam. This is the same impulse that led to the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan.”

Ah! Don’t be so stupid, Turkey. You have been considered most secular among all Muslim countries. Now you want to be labelled as an insane! There is no pride being like Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan! Ignorant Islamists in those countries destroy the history. As if nothing existed before Islam.
Don’t turn museums into mosques. You have no lack of mosques. Don’t try to wipe out history. History will not forgive you.

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CNN anchor sounds like Sarah Palin. She asked a stupid question to Bill Nye the science guy, ‘did global warming cause the Asteroid that will soon fy past Earth?’ Bill Nye did not laugh, but others did. Some said, ‘Makes me wonder if a basic intelligence evaluation should be required of reporters. Pretty dismal demonstration of current news dialogue.’ ‘The last time I saw a picture of Al Gore he looked like HE was the asteroid.’ ‘had this been a fox news anchor this article would be longer and nye would have been more d!ckish.’ ‘You can tap dance around her lack of intelligence all day long, but you can’t fix stupid.’ ‘Wow I applaud Nye for not laughing out loud and embarrassing the host. I doubt I could constrain myself like that.’ ‘Must resist urge to make any stereotypical jokes about blonds and their intelligence.’ ‘This is why people trained only in journalism should never cover science issues. Surely there are scientists capable of reading copy?’
The anchor asked a stupid question. True. Sometimes they do on behalf of stupid audience because the stupid audience feel comfortable and continue watching TV! You can forgive the stupid anchor if a brilliant guy is chosen to give a brilliant answer.

You can question like Sarah Palin but you should not answer like Sarah Palin. If you do, you CNN will lose your credibility, and become just FOX news.

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There are thousands of godmen in India. They fool people using their little magic tricks. They walk across hot coals, burp out gold eggs, make ash out of thin air, turn water into blood etc. These charlatans are called ‘baba’. Baba business flourishes in India because a large number of people are ignorant and idiot. Politicians, players, film stars, and many famous people are their disciples. They give babas hundreds of millions of rupees. Some babas or spiritual gurus have followers even in the Western countries. The Beatles once fell for a charlatan. [Read more…]

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“A cult of masculinity is behind the constant violation of women around the world — that some men brutalize women against their own self-interest because of an addiction to control or domination. Rape is not about sex, rape is about violence, proving ‘masculine’ superiority; often inserting guns and other objects into women’s bodies; playing out hostility to other men by invading the bodies of ‘their’ females, including old women and babies; occupying wombs with sperm of a conquering group; owning female bodies as the means of reproduction; and raping men and boys to make them as inferior as females.” – Gloria Steinem

She is just thirteen years old. She refuses to leave school after classes and is constantly weeping. Isn’t that strange? What is perturbing her? For the last two years, she had been repeatedly raped by her father, brother and two uncles at her home. An incident in Kerala that came to public notice a few days ago, reminded me of a similar incident from the same state where a father not only raped her minor daughter but took money from hundred other men so that they can satiate their carnal desires by raping his daughter. There is hardly any nation or culture which has no instances of rape of minors by fathers or father-like figures. Statistics say, nearly 70% of the child sexual abusers are males, and are close relatives of the victims. Some are known family friends, distant relatives, neighbours. Very few strangers cause rape. Does this not remind you of Jane Smiley’s “A Thousand Acres”? A father who indulged in sexual relation with daughters when they turned 13, and abused them till they turned 16; there is a saying in Hindi – Rakshak bana Bhakshak, protectors turn attackers. How true is that! For women, safety is a luxury, not a right. Indoors, her father will rape her and when you demand security outside the house, the police rape you. [Read more…]